Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Cadavid Escobar
Hi Vanessa, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Honesto; as its name says, it is something fair, decent, correct. Honesto Café was born in Medellín, Colombia with its founder and now my business partner Nicolás Penagos in 2005.
My beginnings in the world of specialty coffee were in 2018 with Nicolás, its quality and the history behind the company was worth knowing the world about and since then it has always been a dream of both of us to be able to open borders and bring a good coffee, an Honest coffee. Our vision is to be the company of specialty coffee that connects the producer with the national and international buyer to offer them the best specialty coffees available in Colombia, always seeking to pay the producer a fair price that its sustainable in time in line with the quality of the coffee they produce and guarantee the buyer a certified product that meets their expectations.
I moved to California in 2021, I live in the valley and finding quality coffee was challenging, I could never find a coffee that met the standards I was already usted to and at that moment I knew it was time to bring Honesto to the United States. My husband has been an incredible support during this process, as he had the opportunity to meet Honesto in Colombia on the day of our destination wedding in 2023. His words will forever remain in my heart “I didn’t know what it was like to drink good coffee until today,” and this confirmed the start of Honesto Café US.
By 2024, it was a reality to be able to reach the United States with a model that would allow us to get to know the coffee market in this country. We started with farmers’ markets (CANOGA PARK, FARM HABIT- BEVERLY HILLS, GLENDALE AND RIVERSIDE) and managed to enter the world of entertainment through festivals and large companies such as TYR (Wodapalooza) DLS, LNE, KILROY and GPN (Girls Power Network). We have been able to participate in Dreamstate, Apocalypse Zombie Land, Forever Midnight, Skyline, Beyond Wonderland with DLS, and Reggae Rise UP (Vegas, Arizona)
and Best Friends Forever with LNE.
Reaching thousands of people and finding their arms open to the world of specialty coffee has been immensely satisfying, so much so that it has motivated and encouraged us to open the doors of our first location, which we hope to open in the middle of next month in Brentwood, LA.
At Honesto Café, we believe in the potential that specialty coffees have in the international market. We find that society is learning more and more to consume quality coffee. We are firm and committed to continue working hard to be fair with our coffee growers and their work and in turn with our consumers to bring them the best cup of coffee.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been an easy road and if it was everyone would do it, but it has certainly been the most rewarding road. It takes strength and energy that can only be found when you know for certain that the product you are bringing to market is something that you full heartedly believe in.
Starting a company in a country that is not yours felt like being born again, it is learning about new laws and forms and totally unknown paths. The path is not clear nor is it necessary to start a company and specifically a coffee company like we wanted to do. We built a beautiful mobile cart that runs off of solar power so we could place it anywhere. Today, for example, they still don’t know where to classify us. We don’t fit into the food truck model or the food cart model, so getting the health permits at the beginning was something completely challenging.
Although I was close to the work that Nicolas did in Colombia, being in charge of the business forces you to know not only the front but the back of absolutely everything. We had no idea where to start. First it was about learning how to make the perfect coffee. We flew out Nicolas from Colombia to teach us everything we needed to know about the different extraction processes (pour over, cold brew, espresso) and the importance of using all the highest quality equipment and all the work behind the coffee growers at the farms, not forgeting about finding the right team to work with. Because we care about each and every detail behind our coffee. We make sure that all the equipment is of the highest quality and finding the allies to do it has also been part of the way. I don’t know if I should call it luck but we have managed to work hand in hand with the best like SANREMO USA and now people who have become friends who have helped us in the process like MACCHINISTAS LA and GOODPEOPLE coffee.
As in everything in life it is about identifying opportunities and sometimes these opportunities bring losses, the requirements to be able to participate in certain events are high, such as which festivals you have participated in, how many followers you have, who you have worked with. And the investment in time and money is very high for the profits that some of these events bring, but the fact of having them on our resume has allowed the doors to open for us in the world in which we now move and for which we are totally grateful because they have motivated us to continue. We started this venture with little to no capital and that made it harder as well. How do you take a brand that nobody has heard of with little money and expect to succeed in a business that is run by giant corporations ie: Starbucks and many more?
Going into this business we though we were going to start by catering weddings because in Colombian Honesto Café caters around 100 weddings per year. We booked a booth at a wedding expo for our first ever event for the company launch and gave free samples of our Lyche and Farm la María coffee. We had a line for the full event that was at least 50 people long for 4 hours straight and not a single wedding booked. But it still gave us confidence that our product was something that the people loved.
We started looking for events where we could sell coffee drinks and started doing small markets and we were applying for festivals every chance we could get. We work thinking many times that no one sees the effort, celebrating the small steps becomes difficult at many times, but we realized that you never know who is watching you from a distance, we realized that doing things well even if “no one sees you” is worth it because without thinking about it, one day the call came that would change everything: “Hi, we have been seeing what you are doing, how you move and what you have achieved through your social networks. We would be interested in you participating in two festivals that we do in Las Vegas, are you interested?” And that’s how the entertainment world opened the doors for us.
After putting those festivals on our application other festivals accepted us. This was looking like the way our company needed to pivot to. And like everything in life, you climb a mountain but you find another one in front of you. Our name was starting to be strong in the media and they no longer just wanted one coffee cart, they asked us for two, without thinking and without having it built yet we accepted, and here I return to the opportunities that we face as entrepreneurs, knowing how to take them at the right time can change the course for good or for evil, and in our case it opened more doors for us but at a higher cost. We had no idea how we were going to come up with the money to make another cart (full cart build out with everything is over $20,000). When there is a will there is a way. We managed to get it built and put together within a week of the festival start date. This particular festival company has its own point of sale machines so all the money they make goes to them first and then they process it and pay us more than a month later. This also puts us in financial hardship because of the amount of money we had to put up for the new cart.
I have always been an entrepreneur, I studied social communication at EAFIT in Medellin, Colombia. When I graduated I formed a communication and audiovisual content company with some friends. I have worked as a freelancer all my life, I have modeled, I have been a presenter and I even produced a mini series on YouTube. I have always known the path of the entrepreneur. But the world of coffee and our business model brought new challenges, the consumer’s schedules, and the physical fatigue that comes with setting up and taking down the setup with equipment that weighs up to 70LB without talking about the financial issue; they have allowed us to know parts of ourselves that we did not know, it has allowed us to value the effort and the people that this coffee environment has brought to our lives and above all it has shown us that we have no limits to achieve what we want if we do it with honesty and love.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Perseverance. I have that word tattooed on my skin. Since I was very little I learned that in this life it is not about the one who has the most but about the one who, no matter how many times he falls, comes back and stands up with even more stronger.
I was always the girl with good grades in school, at that time social pressure marked a lot the path I was going to take in life, I was surrounded by people with a lot of money and fame, when the reality was that my family and I were facing a completely different reality. I owe everything to my parents, being in 6th grade my parents faced their first financial crisis so I learned from a very young age to work hard to get what I needed. With my good grades I managed to remain on a scholarship at one of the most prestigious schools in my city: Montessori School in Medellin, Colombia. At that time I thought that being a lawyer or a doctor would allow me to have a better future for my family, so from 11th grade I got involved in programs with the mayor’s office that allowed me to advance a university class in EAFIT University while still in high school. At that time I was 15 years old and the only thing I knew was to be in survival mode.
I managed to graduate and continue with my law degree, I completed the first semester and I had never been so overwhelmed with my reality before, for the first time my academic grades did not motivate me to continue and I made the decision to change my career. My second university adventure began at the San Martin University Foundation in Sabaneta, Colombia, I completed 7 semesters. Being in the 4th semester, the university faced political problems that led us to experience bullying in the hospital, cancellation of classes and other types of situations that led me to make the biggest decision of my life. Here I was facing my ego. Medicine was something I liked and enjoyed, and in the 7th semester the political problem became so big for my mental health that I left for the second time and decided to do something “temporary” until I resolved that issue. EAFIT became my home again. I call it my second home because I spent too many hours of my life in its classrooms, I made friends who became family (TUTORS: STUDENT GROUP) and finally, at some point, it led me to join my life line with Honesto Café.
I was part of Tutors, I was a monitor at the International Relations Office, I won a sports scholarship for my academic average and for being part of the university women’s soccer team, I was a finalist with my degree project (AMARTE ASI: A prevention and education project around child sexual abuse for parents, teachers and psychologists) in a national contest and all this led me to get a 100% scholarship to finish the last years of my career in Social Communication and to be recognized in it for co-creating and doing the executive production without having graduated of a You Tube mini series called WHISPER, recognized for having the greatest influencers in the country at the time such as Luisa Fernanda W and Brosnacion. The first episode had more than 500 thousand views and 100 thousand subscribers, and here begins my story with Honesto Café. Among the alliances we made and the sponsors we got like ZARA, Bershka, Stradivarius, Honesto Café among others. Nicolás, the creator of Honesto, catered the entire production with his coffee and breakfasts throughout the entire shoot.
Since then, the friendship with Nico, as I call him, and the closeness with Honesto have remained over time. I was present at his events, I was invited to latte art competitions as a spectator, I did public relations and became an ambassador for the brand. I learned everything I know about Specialty Coffee thanks to Honesto and his entire team. At some point along the way we mentioned that it would be a dream to internationalize Honesto and today we are telling its story.
I graduated with honors, and together with some friends I created my first communications and audiovisual content creation company in 2021. The pandemic arrived and life led me to make decisions such as visiting my brother in the United States, meeting Mateo; my husband and together we ventured in 2024 to bring Honesto Café to the United States.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Family will always be my greatest driving force, my efforts and my achievements will always be dedicated to them.
Pricing:
- Every event its priced specifically four our customers in every way. From the coffee they want, the milk and ingredients, to the number of guests. Everything we do is personalized.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://us.honestocafe.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/honestocafeus/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/honestocafe/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/honestocafe/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@honesto_cafe
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/honesto-cafe-los-angeles-7?osq=honesto+cafe
- Other: https://wa.me/13234307221
Image Credits
Honesto Café
